Applications & Pathways

This study examines the steps to lower air emissions in South Korea’s domestic shipping sector. It highlights the significant contributions of the sector to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions emphasizing its impact on environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation. By looking at the current shipping energy use and emissions the research identifies ways to reduce the environmental impact of domestic shipping. Data was collected from domestic ferry routes and the fuel use was reviewed with respect to existing global technologies for reducing emissions. The results show that operational changes and current energy-efficient technologies can quickly cut emissions. Furthermore a long-term plan is suggested involving the development of new ship designs and the use of net-zero fuels like biofuels methanol hydrogen and ammonia. These efforts aim to meet climate goals targeting a 40% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030 and a 70% reduction by 2050 making South Korea’s shipping industry more sustainable and resilient.

Compression ignition engines will still be predominant in the naval sector: their high efficiency high torque and heavy weight perfectly suit the demands and architecture of ships. Nevertheless recent emission legislations impose limitations to the pollutant emissions levels in this sector as well. In addition to post-treatment systems it is necessary to reduce some pollutant species and therefore the study of combustion strategies and new fuels can represent valid paths for limiting environmental harmful emissions such as CO2 . The use of methane in dual fuel mode has already been implemented on existent vessels but the progressive decarbonization will lead to the utilization of carbon-neutral or carbon-free fuels such as in the last case hydrogen. Thanks to its high reactivity nature it can be helpful in the reduction of exhaust CH4 . On the contrary together with the high temperatures achieved by its oxidation hydrogen could cause uncontrolled ignition of the premixed charge and high emissions of NOx. As a matter of fact a source of ignition is still necessary to have better control on the whole combustion development. To this end an optimal and specific injection strategy can help to overcome all the before-mentioned issues. In this study three-dimensional numerical simulations have been performed with the ANSYS Forte® software (version 19.2) in an 8.8 L dual fuel engine cylinder supplied with methane hydrogen or hydrogen–methane blends with reference to experimental tests from the literature. A new kinetic mechanism has been used for the description of diesel fuel surrogate oxidation with a set of reactions specifically addressed for the low temperatures together with the GRIMECH 3.0 for CH4 and H2 . This kinetics scheme allowed for the adequate reproduction of the ignition timing for the various mixtures used. Preliminary calculations with a one-dimensional commercial code were performed to retrieve the initial conditions of CFD calculations in the cylinder. The used approach demonstrated to be quite a reliable tool to predict the performance of a marine engine working under dual fuel mode with hydrogen-based blends at medium load. As a result the system modelling shows that using hydrogen as fuel in the engine can achieve the same performance as diesel/natural gas but when hydrogen totally replaces methane CO2 is decreased up to 54% at the expense of the increase of about 76% of NOx emissions.

The road-transport is one of the major contributors to greenhouse global gas (GHG) emissions where hydrogen (H2) combustion engines can play a crucial role in the path towards the sector’s decarbonization goal. This study focuses on comparing the performance and emissions of port-fuel injection (PFI) and direct injection (DI) in a spark ignited combustion engine when is fuelled by hydrogen and other noteworthy fuels like methane and coke oven gas (COG). Computational fluid dynamic simulations are performed at optimal spark advance and air-fuel ratio (λ) for engine speeds between 2000 and 5000 rpm. Analysis reveals that brake power increases by 40% for DI attributed to 30.6% enhanced volumetric efficiency while the sNOx are reduced by 36% compared to PFI at optimal λ = 1.5 for hydrogen. Additionally H2 results in 71.8% and 67.2% reduction in fuel consumption compared to methane and COG respectively since the H2 lower heating value per unit of mass is higher.

The agro-livestock sector produces about one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since more energy is needed to meet the growing demand for food and the industrial revolution in agriculture renewable energy sources could improve access to energy resources and energy security reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce GHG emissions. Hydrogen production is a promising energy technology but its deployment in the global energy system is lagging. Here we analyzed the theoretical and practical application of green hydrogen generated by electrolysis of water powered by renewable energy sources in the agro-livestock sector. Green hydrogen is at an early stage of development in most applications and barriers to its large-scale deployment remain. Appropriate policies and financial incentives could make it a profitable technology for the future.

Of all the alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels hydrogen offers the greatest long-term potential to radically reduce the many problems inherent in fuel used for transportation. Hydrogen vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions and are very efficient. If the hydrogen is made from renewable sources such as nuclear power or fossil sources with carbon emissions captured and sequestered hydrogen use on a global scale would produce almost zero greenhouse gas emissions and greatly reduce air pollutant emissions. The aim of this work is to realise a traceability chain for hydrogen flow metering in the range typical for fuelling applications in a wide pressure range with pressures up to 875 bar (for Hydrogen Refuelling Station - HRS with Nominal Working Pressure of 700 bar) and temperature changes from −40 °C (pre-cooling) to 85 °C (maximum allowed vehicle tank temperature) in accordance with the worldwide accepted standard SAE J2601. Several HRS have been tested in Europe (France Netherlands and Germany) and the results show a good repeatability for all tests. This demonstrates that the testing equipment works well in real conditions. Depending on the installation configuration some systematic errors have been detected and explained. Errors observed for Configuration 1 stations can be explained by pressure differences at the beginning and end of fueling in the piping between the Coriolis Flow Meter (CFM) and the dispenser: the longer the distance the bigger the errors. For Configuration 2 where this distance is very short the error is negligible.

To address the issues of diverse energy supply demands and power fluctuations in integrated energy systems (IESs) this study takes an IES composed of power-generation units such as wind and photovoltaic units along with various energy-storage systems including electrical thermal and hydrogen storage as the research subject. A collaborative control strategy is proposed for the IES which comprehensively considers the status of diverse energy-storage systems like battery packs thermal tanks and hydrogen tanks. First a mathematical model of the IES is constructed. Then a dual-layer collaborative control strategy is designed considering different operating modes of the IES which includes a multi-energy-storage power allocation control layer based on second-order power-frequency processing and distribution and an adaptive adjustment layer for adjusting powerfrequency coefficients based on adaptive fuzzy control. Finally MATLAB is used to simulate and validate the proposed strategy. The results indicate that the collaborative control strategy based on variable-frequency coefficients optimizes the allocation of fluctuating power among multiple energy-storage systems enhances the stability of bus voltage reduces the deep charge and discharge time of battery packs and extends the service life of battery packs.

In the vehicle-to-everything scenario the fuel cell bus can accurately obtain the surrounding traffic information and quickly optimize the energy management problem while controlling its own safe and efficient driving. This paper proposes an energy management strategy (EMS) that considers speed control based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) in complex traffic scenarios. Using SUMO simulation software (Version 1.15.0) a two-lane urban expressway is designed as a traffic scenario and a hydrogen fuel cell bus speed control and energy management system is designed through the soft actor–critic (SAC) algorithm to effectively reduce the equivalent hydrogen consumption and fuel cell output power fluctuation while ensuring the safe efficient and smooth driving of the vehicle. Compared with the SUMO–IDM car-following model the average speed of vehicles is kept the same and the average acceleration and acceleration change value decrease by 10.22% and 11.57% respectively. Compared with deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) the average speed is increased by 1.18% and the average acceleration and acceleration change value are decreased by 4.82% and 5.31% respectively. In terms of energy management the hydrogen consumption of SAC–OPT-based energy management strategy reaches 95.52% of that of the DP algorithm and the fluctuation range is reduced by 32.65%. Compared with SAC strategy the fluctuation amplitude is reduced by 15.29% which effectively improves the durability of fuel cells.

In Austria one of the highest priorities of hydrogen usage lies in the industrial sector particularly as a feedstock and for high-temperature applications. Connecting hydrogen producers with consumers is challenging and requires comprehensive research to outline the advantages and challenges associated with various hydrogen supply options. This study focuses on techno-economic assessment of different supply solutions for industrial sites mainly depicted in two categories: providing hydrogen by transport means and via on-site production. The technologies needed for the investigation of these scenarios are identified based on the predictions of available technologies in near future (2030). The transportation options analyzed include delivering liquid hydrogen by truck liquid hydrogen by railway and gaseous hydrogen via pipeline. For on-site low-carbon hydrogen production a protonexchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis was selected as resent research suggests lower costs for PEM electrolysis compared to alkaline electrolysis (AEL). The frequency of deliveries and storage options vary by scenario and are determined by the industrial demand profile transport capacity and electrolyser production capacity. The assessment evaluates the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of each option considering factors such as infrastructure requirements energy efficiency and economic viability. At a hydrogen demand of 80 GWh the transport options indicate hydrogen supply costs in the range of 14–24 ct/kWh. In contrast the scenarios investigating on-site production of hydrogen show costs between 29 and 49 ct/ kWh. Therefore transport by truck rail or pipeline is economically advantageous to own-production under the specific assumptions and conditions. However the results indicate that as energy demand increases on-site production becomes more attractive. Additionally the influence of electricity prices and the hydrogen production/import price were identified as decisive factors for the overall hydrogen supply costs.

CO2 emissions have been identified as the main driver for climate change with devastating consequences for the global natural environment. The steel industry is responsible for ~7–11% of global CO2 emissions due to high fossil-fuel and energy consumption. The onus is therefore on industry to remedy the environmental damage caused and to decarbonise production. This desk research report explores the Bio Steel Cycle (BiSC) and proposes a seven-step-strategy to overcome the emission challenges within the iron and steel industry. The true levels of combined CO2 emissions from the blast-furnace and basic-oxygen-furnace operation at 4.61 t of CO2 emissions/t of steel produced are calculated in detail. The BiSC includes CO2 capture implementing renewable energy sources (solar wind green H2 ) and plantation for CO2 absorption and provision of biomass. The 7-step-implementation-strategy starts with replacing energy sources develops over process improvement and installation of flue gas carbon capture and concludes with utilising biogas-derived hydrogen as a product from anaerobic digestion of the grown agrifood in the cycle. In the past CO2 emissions have been seemingly underreported and underestimated in the heavy industries and implementing the BiSC using the provided seven-steps-strategy will potentially result in achieving net-zero CO2 emissions in steel manufacturing by 2030.

Electro-fuels (E-fuels) represent a potential solution for decarbonizing the maritime sector including pleasure vessels. Due to their large energy requirements direct electrification is not currently feasible. E-fuels such as synthetic diesel methanol ammonia methane and hydrogen can be used in existing internal combustion engines or fuel cells in hybrid configurations with lithium batteries to provide propulsion and onboard electricity. This study confirms that there is no clear winner in terms of efficiency (the power-to-power efficiency of all simulated cases ranges from 10% to 30%) and the choice will likely be driven by other factors such as fuel cost onboard volume/mass requirements and distribution infrastructure. Pure hydrogen is not a practical option due to its large storage necessity while methanol requires double the storage volume compared to current fossil fuel solutions. Synthetic diesel is the most straightforward option as it can directly replace fossil diesel and should be compared with biofuels. CO2 emissions from E-fuels strongly depend on the electricity source used for their synthesis. With Italy’s current electricity mix E-fuels would have higher impacts than fossil diesel with potential increases between +30% and +100% in net total CO2 emissions. However as the penetration of renewable energy increases in electricity generation associated E-fuel emissions will decrease: a turning point is around 150 gCO2/kWhel.